You are not perfect. That is okay.

I’ve been on this self development journey over the past year.

Shedding a complete false self that I had built to protect the person I actually was because I feared that the world wouldn’t like him.

I had reached a point a month ago where I started to feel like I was getting it all and didn’t feel that lost for a brief period. I thought id figured it out. But I still was tapped into the external world and not looking and genuinely listening within as to what my soul needs.

I was still using work and my goals as a cover and it is the addiction that has its biggest grip on my life.

I use it as a way to prove my worth and value I feel I never deserved to have because I never felt like I fit in and that I could be enough in a world I thought didn’t want me.

But because Im doing things I enjoy like writing or screen printing or designing websites it seems productive and others applaud it.

But for me it is a way to avoid just being. Just existing and appreciating all the beautiful people in my life around me.

LIfe was too painful for too long, feeling like no one wanted the person I actually was, even though I had so much love around me. Comes from early in my childhood. But because of this I built an armour and shell around me that could protect the actual self inside from being hurt anymore.

And this past year has been a journey of cracking that tough shell that had hardened over time of hiding inside it.

All I wanted to do as a kid was write draw do parkour and take photos but the world around me told me to get real and just stop trying to do that you can’t make money from that. Id sing and dance to music and climb trees and not care what others thought, I was just doing what called me at that moment.

This world now likes to call it ADHD or not able to control impulses, and yes there may be some truth to it. But really I just tapped into my impulses and listened inside and did what my soul needed in that moment.

But over time some of those parts became toxic impulses. An addiction to working to prove my worth. An addiction to buying books to learn all I can and prove my worth with my knowledge. Whilst both seem good on the outside, they are tainted with a desire to be more and need more and need others to tell me I am enough.

It also manifests in me as a feeling I need to be perfect through fear of being exiled from culture or from my internal tribe. If I don’t strive to be perfect and keep myself in this prison of control and being what I think I should be I feel like I have failed those around me.

Recently I had reached a peaceful and content moment in my life, and thought ‘yeah this feels good, this goes on forever right’.

Nope. Back to riding the wave of life.

Yesterday I was so incredibly low and I couldn’t explain why and put a finger on it. With the help of my kind parents and amazing girlfriend and sitting with myself just listening I realised again how much I was working and stuck in this cycle of control.

I was still being so sososos fucking hard on myself to build this amazing productive routine and if I didn’t get the work done I wanted to in that one day I felt Id let myself down.

I’d set goals. Listened to how others did it. Focused so much on the future.

I forgot what was in front of me. Just existing and being with the moment I have with the great people in my life.

I crave perfection because it seems right and clean in this messy uncertain world.

But LIFE IS FUKIN MESSY and that is ok.

You are not perfect and that is ok.

The world will tell you otherwise.

But you are, and you know it deep down. You just have to get quiet enough to listen.

You are so young. So much life ahead of you and in front of you right now. You are enough. You’ve been through a lot. But just keep on going and spend some time with the people you love in your life.

Tell your people you love them.

This world is caught in a spiral of pain and just wants to pass it onto others to stop feeling it for a second. Use your pain and channel it into something beautiful. Give that butterfly some wings.

You are already everything you need to be. You can grow and still be who you truly are. Don’t do it for others. Do it for the self inside you that has been neglected for too long.

Go shake your booty in a club, there is no work to do tomorrow.